yes, lesbians are still relevant. “lesbian” isn’t something you just identify into, but a word to describe a woman exclusively attracted to other women. just because queerness is considered the ideal at this college does not mean everyone’s sexuality is fluid.
this is such lesbophobic garbage and i am honestly disgusted to see my school platforming this type of rhetoric.
Relevance. How is it possible that this question–whether so directly asked or just implied–has been considered “relevant” in academia since I was an undergrad in the 90s?
WHO IS BEING SERVED by this bullshit?
And how can queer academics be so naive as to think they are not responsible for helping to manufacture lesbian erasure, helping to produce the supposed “irrelevance” of being lesbian, by framing a conversation in this way?
And how much harder do they make it for any lesbian student to understand herself as a lesbian per se, when they do?
This is a clear example of lesbians being encouraged to dissociate from our female-loving-female reality…in favor of the supposedly more “relevant” letters of the alphabet soup. For how long will that agenda get to be considered “cutting edge?” This is tired. So very tired.
Understanding lesbians as a kind of “female man” or third sex is an old, tired patriarchal idea. The oldest and tiredest there is. Lesbian feminists who built a world in which there could be an “Office of LGBTA Affairs” did groundbreaking work in creating an understanding of our lesbian selves that is self-referential and female-identified. And that work was so powerful that the backlash is this intense and unrelenting, and has been for decades upon decades.
Yet #lgbq people and #transgender people are the dangerous ones to society!! Yeah right. Examine that #whiteprivilege #racism #sexism #transphobia and #homophobia at the door. And, What he said below ⤵️
content warning: explicit talk of childhood sexual abuse & religous trauma without going into detail; explicit mentions of acephobia, biphobia, homophobia
this is one of two posts that i’m going to (hopefully) post on the topic of sexual abuse / violence and consent issues. this specific post is a submission to @resourcesforacesurvivors‘ series on Intersectional Ace Survivor Stories and pertains to navigating childhood trauma and religious family as a not-so-young-anymore black, non-binary, bi / pan asexual. while i have talked briefly about the topic of this post in a video, for the most part the experiences discussed in both posts are ones that i’m only just now sitting down and thinking about. please bear with me as i try to put things into words.
i’ll be honest with you. i’m extremely hesitant about posting this or drawing any kind of connection between myself and sexual abuse. why? well, for one, my online presence isn’t exactly anonymous. on top of that, i don’t actually view myself as a survivor. even identifying as a victim at all is something that i’m still coming to terms with.
regardless of how i view myself, you, dear reader, might view me as a survivor and/or a victim after reading this (or the upcoming) post and quite frankly, i’m not sure how i feel about that. it almost feels like posting this is a calculated risk of sorts that i’m taking.
the goal: to put a story that seems to be uncommon out there for those who might benefit from hearing it.
the risk: being viewed as or associated with something that i don’t don’t even view myself as or associate myself with. having people attribute who i am to this trauma.
…well, enough with the stalling. here goes nothing.
when your (a)sexuality and/or gender is blamed on childhood trauma that you didn’t even know happened to you, how do you even begin dealing with it? and where do you even go from there?
Kansas’ Anti-Gay Segregation Bill Is an Abomination
By Mark Joseph Stern
On Tuesday, the Kansas House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a measure designed to bring anti-gay segregation—under the guise of “religious liberty”—to the already deep-red state. The bill, written out of fear that the state may soon face an Oklahoma-style gay marriage ruling, will now easily pass the Republican Senate and be signed into law by the Republican governor. The result will mark Kansas as the first state, though certainly not the last, to legalize segregation of gay and straight people in virtually every arena of life.
If that sounds overblown, consider the bill itself. When passed, the new law will allow any individual, group, or private business to refuse to serve gay couples if “it would be contrary to their sincerely held religious beliefs.” Private employers can continue to fire gay employees on account of their sexuality. Stores may deny gay couples goods and services because they are gay. Hotels can eject gay couples or deny them entry in the first place. Businesses that provide public accommodations—movie theaters, restaurants—can turn away gay couples at the door. And if a gay couple sues for discrimination, they won’t just lose; they’ll be forced to pay their opponent’s attorney’s fees. As I’ve noted before, anti-gay businesses might as well put out signs alerting gay people that their business isn’t welcome.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. In addition to barring all anti-discrimination lawsuits against private employers, the new law permits government employees to deny service to gays in the name of “religious liberty.” This is nothing new, but the sweep of Kansas’ statute is breathtaking. Any government employee is given explicit permission to discriminate against gay couples—not just county clerks and DMV employees, but literally anyone who works for the state of Kansas. If a gay couple calls the police, an officer may refuse to help them if interacting with a gay couple violates his religious principles. State hospitals can turn away gay couples at the door and deny them treatment with impunity. Gay couples can be banned from public parks, public pools, anything that operates under the aegis of the Kansas state government.
It gets worse. The law’s advocates claim that it applies only to gay couples—but there’s no clear limiting principle in the text of the bill that would keep it from applying to gay individuals as well. A catch-all clause allows businesses and bureaucrats to discriminate against gay people so long as this discrimination is somehow “related to, or related to the celebration of, any marriage, domestic partnership, civil union or similar arrangement.” (Emphases mine.) This subtle loophole is really just a blank check to discriminate: As long as an individual believes that his service is somehow linked to a gay union of any form, he can legally refuse his services. And since anyone who denies gays service is completely shielded from any charges, no one will ever have to prove that their particular form of discrimination fell within the four corners of the law.
Supporting the bill on the House floor, Republican state Rep. Charles Macheers proclaimed that “discrimination is horrible. It’s hurtful. … It has no place in civilized society, and that’s precisely why we’re moving this bill.” The latter claim is absurd, of course—this bill is an explicit effort to make gay people’s lives miserable—but the former is absolutely true. Discrimination is hurtful and horrible, and it will also soon be codified into Kansas law, as other red states look on (and follow suit). Homophobes are nothing if not savvy, and while the judiciary dukes out the gay marriage issue, the shrewdest bigots have already moved on to the next battle. There might still be time to prevent such discrimination in bluer states. But in dark-red places like Kansas, anti-gay segregation is the new reality.
Every morning, Brittany Geldert stepped off the bus and bolted through the double doors of Fred Moore Middle School, her nerves already on high alert, bracing for the inevitable.
“Dyke.”
Pretending not to hear, Brittany would walk briskly to her locker, past the sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders who loitered in menacing packs.
“Whore.”
Like many 13-year-olds, Brittany knew seventh grade was a living hell. But what she didn’t know was that she was caught in the crossfire of a culture war being waged by local evangelicals inspired by their high-profile congressional representative Michele Bachmann, who graduated from Anoka High School and, until recently, was a member of one of the most conservative churches in the area. When Christian activists who considered gays an abomination forced a measure through the school board forbidding the discussion of homosexuality in the district’s public schools, kids like Brittany were unknowingly thrust into the heart of a clash that was about to become intertwined with tragedy.
Brittany didn’t look like most girls in blue-collar Anoka, Minnesota, a former logging town on the Rum River, a conventional place that takes pride in its annual Halloween parade – it bills itself the “Halloween Capital of the World.” Brittany was a low-voiced, stocky girl who dressed in baggy jeans and her dad’s Marine Corps sweatshirts. By age 13, she’d been taunted as a “cunt” and “cock muncher” long before such words had made much sense. When she told administrators about the abuse, they were strangely unresponsive, even though bullying was a subject often discussed in school-board meetings. The district maintained a comprehensive five-page anti-bullying policy, and held diversity trainings on racial and gender sensitivity. Yet when it came to Brittany’s harassment, school officials usually told her to ignore it, always glossing over the sexually charged insults. Like the time Brittany had complained about being called a “fat dyke”: The school’s principal, looking pained, had suggested Brittany prepare herself for the next round of teasing with snappy comebacks – “I can lose the weight, but you’re stuck with your ugly face” – never acknowledging she had been called a “dyke.” As though that part was OK. As though the fact that Brittany was bisexual made her fair game.
So maybe she was a fat dyke, Brittany thought morosely; maybe she deserved the teasing. She would have been shocked to know the truth behind the adults’ inaction: No one would come to her aid for fear of violating the districtwide policy requiring school personnel to stay “neutral” on issues of homosexuality. All Brittany knew was that she was on her own, vulnerable and ashamed, and needed to find her best friend, Samantha, fast.
Like Brittany, eighth-grader Samantha Johnson was a husky tomboy too, outgoing with a big smile and a silly streak to match Brittany’s own. Sam was also bullied for her look – short hair, dark clothing, lack of girly affect – but she merrily shrugged off the abuse. When Sam’s volleyball teammates’ taunting got rough – barring her from the girls’ locker room, yelling, “You’re a guy!” – she simply stopped going to practice. After school, Sam would encourage Brittany to join her in privately mocking their tormentors, and the girls would parade around Brittany’s house speaking in Valley Girl squeals, wearing bras over their shirts, collapsing in laughter. They’d become as close as sisters in the year since Sam had moved from North Dakota following her parents’ divorce, and Sam had quickly become Brittany’s beacon. Sam was even helping to start a Gay Straight Alliance club, as a safe haven for misfits like them, although the club’s progress was stalled by the school district that, among other things, was queasy about the club’s flagrant use of the word “gay.” Religious conservatives have called GSAs “sex clubs,” and sure enough, the local religious right loudly objected to them. “This is an assault on moral standards,” read one recent letter to the community paper. “Let’s stop this dangerous nonsense before it’s too late and more young boys and girls are encouraged to ‘come out’ and practice their 'gayness’ right in their own school’s homosexual club.”
Brittany admired Sam’s courage, and tried to mimic her insouciance and stoicism. So Brittany was bewildered when one day in November 2009, on the school bus home, a sixth-grade boy slid in next to her and asked quaveringly, “Did you hear Sam said she’s going to kill herself?”
Brittany considered the question. No way. How many times had she seen Sam roll her eyes and announce, “Ugh, I’m gonna kill myself” over some insignificant thing? “Don’t worry, you’ll see Sam tomorrow,” Brittany reassured her friend as they got off the bus. But as she trudged toward her house, she couldn’t stop turning it over in her mind. A boy in the district had already committed suicide just days into the school year – TJ Hayes, a 16-year-old at Blaine High School – so she knew such things were possible. But Sam Johnson? Brittany tried to keep the thought at bay. Finally, she confided in her mother.
“This isn’t something you kid about, Brittany,” her mom scolded, snatching the kitchen cordless and taking it down the hall to call the Johnsons. A minute later she returned, her face a mask of shock and terror. “Honey, I’m so sorry. We’re too late,” she said tonelessly as Brittany’s knees buckled; 13-year-old Sam had climbed into the bathtub after school and shot herself in the mouth with her own hunting rifle. No one at school had seen her suicide coming.
No one saw the rest of them coming, either.
Sam’s death lit the fuse of a suicide epidemic that would take the lives of nine local students in under two years, a rate so high that child psychologist Dan Reidenberg, executive director of the Minnesota-based Suicide Awareness Voices of Education, declared the Anoka-Hennepin school district the site of a “suicide cluster,” adding that the crisis might hold an element of contagion; suicidal thoughts had become catchy, like a lethal virus. “Here you had a large number of suicides that are really closely connected, all within one school district, in a small amount of time,” explains Reidenberg. “Kids started to feel that the normal response to stress was to take your life.”
There was another common thread: Four of the nine dead were either gay or perceived as such by other kids, and were reportedly bullied. The tragedies come at a national moment when bullying is on everyone’s lips, and a devastating number of gay teens across the country are in the news for killing themselves. Suicide rates among gay and lesbian kids are frighteningly high, with attempt rates four times that of their straight counterparts; studies show that one-third of all gay youth have attempted suicide at some point (versus 13 percent of hetero kids), and that internalized homophobia contributes to suicide risk.
Against this supercharged backdrop, the Anoka-Hennepin school district finds itself in the spotlight not only for the sheer number of suicides but because it is accused of having contributed to the death toll by cultivating an extreme anti-gay climate. “LGBTQ students don’t feel safe at school,” says Anoka Middle School for the Arts teacher Jefferson Fietek, using the acronym for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning. “They’re made to feel ashamed of who they are. They’re bullied. And there’s no one to stand up for them, because teachers are afraid of being fired.”
Father of gay NFL prospect Michael Sam claims New York Times ‘terribly misquoted’ him
he father of the first openly gay NFL top prospect told a Texas newspaper he was “terribly misquoted” by The New York Times in a story about his reaction to his son’s bombshell disclosure.
Michael Sam Sr. claims he never told the Galveston Daily News on Wednesday that he’s from the “old school,” a “man-and-a-woman type of guy” or that he didn’t want his grandchildren to be raised in “that kind” of environment following his son’s announcement late Sunday.
“I did not say anything about my grandkids,” Sam Sr. told the newspaper.
Sam, according to the Times, learned his son was gay on Feb. 4 via a text message he received while at a Denny’s near his home outside Dallas.
“I couldn’t eat no more, so I went to Applebee’s to have drinks,” Sam Sr. told the paper. “I don’t want my grandkids raised in that kind of environment.”
As evidence of his masculinity, Sam Sr. said he even took one of his eight children to Mexico to lose his virginity, according to the Times. But the elder Sam said pushed back on the newspaper’s characterization of his take on Deacon Jones, a Hall of Fame defensive end known for his toughness who’d be “turning over in his grave” on the very idea of a gay NFL player.
“I told them that Deacon Jones is going to roll over in his grave because here comes my son and that he’s going to be a star in the NFL,” he told the Galveston newspaper.
Sam Sr. told the Times he loves his son and that he hoped he made it to the NFL, but noted the “many hurdles” black men face in America.
“As a black man, we have so many hurdles to cross,” he said. “This is just one he has to cross.”
On Wednesday, Sam Sr. told the Galveston Daily News that he’s in “full support” of his son, a former Missouri defensive end projected to be a mid-round selection.
“My son did the right thing, and I am not against him at all,” he told the newspaper. “He has made a great statement in coming out, and that he should be able to play in the NFL. I love him unconditionally. Once he gets on the field and hits (someone) once, they won’t think he’s gay.”
The Times, meanwhile, is standing by its story.
“We generally are not inclined to discuss the details of our reporting, but I can assure you that we quoted Mr. Sam accurately and fairly,” Times sports editor Jason Stallman wrote the newspaper in an email. “I’ve gone over it with our reporters, and everything was rock solid, beyond any doubt.”
Calls seeking comment from Stallman and Sam Sr. by FoxNews.com were not returned Friday.
Reaction to Sam’s announcement was swift and varied. Vice President Joe Biden, first lady Michelle Obama and President Obama’s spokesman quickly praised the defensive standout as a courageous and inspiring athlete.
“Your courage is an inspiration to all of us,” Biden posted on Twitter.
Sam is scheduled to participate in the league’s weeklong scouting camp, where potential draftees are evaluated, later this month in Indianapolis.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said Sam’s announcement should not affect his standing on the NFL draft, adding that his abilities should be measured by his performance.
“And in this case, his performance has been exceptional,” Carney said.
In contrast, some players, including collegiate, former and current, have said the league may not be ready for a gay player.
Kent State University suspended a wrestler indefinitely for making a derogatory comment on his Twitter account about Sam. The Ohio school said Sam Wheeler, 20, first tweeted Monday using a homophobic slur, saying he couldn’t watch a television program because they were talking about Sam. Wheeler exchanged tweets with others who defended Sam before his Twitter account was deactivated.
The Canadian Football League also fined two players for comments about Sam. Montreal Alouettes wide receiver Arland Bruce and Winnipeg Blue Bombers defensive tackle Bryant Turner Jr. were penalized undisclosed amounts on Tuesday for postings on social media. Bruce misspelled the word “gay” in his message, which urged Sam to “man up” and get on his knees and “submit to God fully.”
One cornerback for the New York Giants, however, has made it clear he would not be comfortable with Sam as a teammate.
“I don’t believe in it, I don’t respect it, but if that’s what you want to do, so be it,’’ Terrell Thomas told The New York Post. “I can’t speak for the NFL or our team or the locker room, I just know what goes on and what type of situation it’s going to put a lot of guys in.’’
Sometimes, the things figure skaters say to the press require actual translation.
The pressures on male Olympic skaters are different from the pressures in most people’s lives. If you take their comments at face value, the skaters may sound closeted. They may sound self-hating. They may sound naïve or deluded. This is not what’s going on.
Last August, Jeremy Abbott refused to speak against Russia’s anti-gay laws. But once U.S. Figure Skating named him to the Olympic team on Jan. 12, he changed his tune, telling Buzzfeed that the laws “go strongly against my personal beliefs." The timing is the message here: Abbott is indicating that it would not have been safe for him to say anything before he secured an Olympic berth.
He added, "I don’t care what people assume about me, whether or not I am gay or straight. I’m an ally and I believe everyone should be supportive of human rights." This requires more reading between the lines. Abbott is signaling that he is not homophobic and personally has no conflict with being considered gay; that he has been told not to state his orientation if he wants the support of his federation with the myriad essentials an Olympic hopeful requires; and that gay skaters in Sochi will need allies, not people pressuring them to come out and perhaps criticizing them if they do not.
If you read between the lines, you can detect that there are people who have control over these athletes’ access to the Olympics, and these people dictate what the athletes can and cannot say. They can, if they wish, manipulate what kind of funding, competitive assignments, and (in rare cases) scores the skaters receive. It does not matter what Abbott’s personal orientation is; this applies to all the skaters.
Two-time Olympian Johnny Weir did not come out until after he competed in the 2010 Olympics. His national federation’s acts of pettiness and sabotage toward him for his femme manner are well chronicled in his autobiography and his television series, "Be Good Johnny Weir." Again, look at the timing. Would viewers who watched Weir in 2010 have been shocked to learn he was gay? But he could not say anything until it was all over. Read between the lines: he was being pressured behind the scenes.
At the beginning of this Olympic season, Weir announced his intention to try for an Olympic spot and to compete in Sochi if he qualified, despite the dangerous anti-gay laws. This announcement brought ridicule from some quarters. At age 29, long past his athletic peak, Weir’s jump repertoire and speed and ice coverage were nowhere near the levels necessary for legitimate contenders. What was he thinking? Was he deluded?
He was not. He was taking advantage of his position to speak out on behalf of Olympic contenders who were being pressured to remain silent. Weir is legally married to a Russian Jewish American man; he does not have the option of going back in the closet. As someone with a public profile, as long as he positioned himself as a potential Olympic competitor, he had a platform from which to declare that gay athletes have the same right to compete as any others. The moment he finalized his contract with NBC as an Olympic commentator, last October, he announced his retirement from competition. He is now as safe as an out gay man can be at the Sochi Olympics, an on-camera employee of a major Olympic funding source. But until he announced this career move, he used his eligible status to speak for other skaters who had more to lose.
Brian Boitano is a skater who had far less to lose by coming out. When he came out in December, after Barack Obama appointed him to the U.S. Olympic delegation to Sochi, many Americans seemed confounded: can it even be considered "coming out” if nobody realized this pop culture icon was still in the closet?
But Boitano was absolutely in the closet. Until December, he had knowingly refused to acknowledge his sexual orientation on the public record, although it is probably accurate to say that he was privately open about being gay with 100% of his friends, family, and acquaintances in figure skating. In 1988, when he became famous for his Olympic win, the American social climate was homophobic enough that it would have been a risk for him to come out, resulting in discrimination and probably significant loss of income in endorsement and appearance fees. Yet by 1997, his homosexuality was so widely assumed in popular culture that it was even an element of the television cartoon “South Park." Whatever Boitano’s reasons for staying closeted, intention to pass as heterosexual was not among them. Boitano never challenged South Park’s characterization of him as a gay icon but embraced it with good humor, even using their material for his own television work.
But this relaxed attitude is pertinent within North America only. Within the current context of anti-gay persecution in Russia, Boitano’s coming out reminds people just how much courage such a gesture can take. Olympic athletes, like anyone else who travels internationally for a living, have safety concerns that may seem outdated to those of us who spend most of our time in more consistently gay-supportive spaces. Boitano coming out: why now? Because it is meaningful now in a way that other skaters will understand. This coming out is not about his individual process or even about being a role model to the general gay public. It is about serving the ally role that Abbott mentioned, standing up for gay athletes the way Weir did earlier this season, one Olympian to another. Boitano has been there. By coming out and traveling to Sochi, he is signaling to gay skaters that he will speak on their behalf until the day they are no longer pressured into silence.
Lorrie Kim wrote about queer issues in figure skating from 1998 to 2006 for the website Rainbow Ice. She wrote the technical appendix to Icebreaker: The Autobiography of Rudy Galindo and edited "Cracked Ice: Figure Skating’s Inner World”, the memoirs of Olympic referee Sonia Bianchetti.
When I said at the LGBT Sports Summit a year ago that we would end homophobia in sports by 2016, most said I was crazy. The guys at Outside The Lines were intrigued, but doubtful. One activist in the movement said they thought I was joking. I wasn’t.
I believe that three years from now the sports world will be viewed as a model of acceptance, that homophobia will be pushed to the corners of sports and that the idea that athletes can’t come out at any level in any sport will be a distant memory.
Football is the key.
Outsports’ two most-read coming out stories in the last year weren’t about a professional basketball or soccer player, they were both about college football players. Part of that record response is certainly that some coming out stories – like those of Jason Collins and Robbie Rogers – were broken elsewhere. If Collins had come out first on Outsports, that would be our most-read story ever.
Still, the fact that our biggest stories revolve around football in particular is no coincidence.
The reception to our story last week about Willamette University kicker Conner Mertens was shocking. Mertens is an awesome kid, but at the end of the day he’s a red-shirt freshman kicker at a Div. III school who hasn’t played a down for his team. Some sadly even pooh-poohed the fact that he’s bisexual. There was some snickering about it, to be sure. But most people were somewhere between curious and inspired: For the first time, an active college football player was coming out to the world.
The exposure for the story was enormous. In just four days it became the second-most read story on Outsports in over a year. It was carried across sports media — including ESPN, CNN, Yahoo! Sports, Bleacher Report and our very own SB Nation – and mainstream media like USA Today and the Washington Post. Fox Sports sent a TV crew to interview Mertens. The school had a press conference due to the overwhelming media interest.
Why all the attention? Football is king in America. In a Harris Poll conducted just last month, 46% of Americans called either the NFL or college football their favorite sport. That beats the combined number (44%) of Major League Baseball, the NBA, auto racing, the NHL, college basketball, men’s tennis, men’s golf, men’s soccer and boxing. Combined. Football stories are simply of more interest to the average American than the stories of any other sport. That includes coming-out stories.
“Gay football player” also plays against stereotype like no other “gay” athlete. When we post the coming-out stories of athletes in some sports, we get the inevitable “of course he’s in X sport,” almost as though some fans dismiss the possibility of homophobia in certain sports. Of course, many others take great inspiration from these stories; But many of the folks whose perspectives we most have to change have a particular impression of what it is to be a football player and what it is to play just about every other sport. It’s not right, and we’re changing it.
Until we get more football players to come out publicly, people will continue to think sports are a desperately homophobic corner of our society. It doesn’t mean I like it or agree with it – It’s just where we are right now.
Sunday’s Super Bowl was the most-watched American broadcast in television history. That says a lot.
Every coming-out story in sports removes another brick from the wall. But when we post the coming-out story of a football player people take extra notice because, in the far distant reaches of the minds of fans and many in the media, it’s still impossible to be gay in football. It’s difficult in basketball, it’s tough in baseball. It’s gotten easier in soccer and hockey. Football? No. Impossible. We hear it over and over, even from many players who say they would be 100% supportive. “The culture is too macho,” goes the mantra. “It would be too hard to come out.”
Yet, all of the facts point to a very different dynamic. When gay players are out in the football locker room, they are accepted. The guys who once said homophobic things now apologize for what they said. We know college football players like Gendreau and Mertens and former college football captain Brian Sims who were out to their teams. We’ll have the story of another college football player this week.
Things are changing, but it’s been this way on many teams for years. Three Houston Oilers – including Warren Moon – have said they had at least two gay teammates, and the other players didn’t care. At the beginning of the season, at least 62 active players had made positive public statements about gays and gay teammates; Most of the rest simply hadn’t been asked.
Football’s offseason began Sunday with the final tick of the Super Bowl clock. We used to have to wait until the lame Pro Bowl, but the NFL finally pushed that up so the Super Bowl is the end of the season. Whether in high school, college or the pros, there are no more tackles, more touchdowns, no more games.
The end of the season signals the real beginning of our culture-changing work in the sport.
Much of the issue at hand for the NFL is simply public awareness. The League has already shifted dramatically on our issues. They’ve been working closely with Wade Davis on programmatic work, like getting in front of rookies and developing creative ways to educate more players and NFL staff on LGBT issues. This is all super important and needs to happen five times as often. But at the professional level, the most important work to be done is visibility. Once guys hear their team leaders talk publicly on these issues, and the more they hear other teams accepting gay athletes, the faster attitudes shift.
At the high school and college level, much of the work involves sitting down with coaches and athletic directors. There is far more education that needs to happen with youth coaches who are less-trained and less dependent on wins and losses to keep their jobs. At those lower levels, coaches and athletic directors are the people who set the tone for the team. They are the key.
To be sure, lesbians have other issues to contend with. Given how few women participate in football at the high school or collegiate level (there are none in the NFL). It’s hard to argue that football is the key to improving the sports environment for lesbians. Though, breaking down barriers for gay men in football can help undermine the “masc-bro-only” stigma of football that keep so many women from playing the sport.
But for gay men, football is the key. That’s why Outsports has spent so much time covering football from our first day of publication, and why telling stories about gay football players and straight NFL players who are cool with the gays will be more of a focus for us in 2014 than it has in any previous year.
Saying homosexuality is a “lifestyle” is just another tool used by homophobes to justify “disagreeing” with it. No you don’t get to debate whether people get the same rights as everyone else just because they aren’t straight. Being gay isn’t a choice. Being homophobic is.
The problem is they think being homosexual is a choice (that’s why they think we can somehow change).
My parents have said (literally) that in 99% of cases homosexuals are “deeply traumatized” and didn’t have a paternal figure, and I really wanted to tell my dad “you then were an horrible paternal figure I guess” but I can do that as I got nowhere to go.
(And it sucks because I thougth I could move out next year for college but due to my depression I must stay at least at home for another year as I’m not completely ok yet)
transcript of video by TikTok account thatannamarie from early December 2021
-begin transcript
Here’s a word that every queer person should know: homonationalism is not the name of my new synth-pop album. It’s a concept from sociology that acknowledges how queer people are used in conversations about global politics.
Homonationalism is when we use LGBT rights as a yardstick to judge how “moral” a society is. It’s short for “homonormative nationalism"—say that five times fast—and it was first coined by Jasbir Puar to describe how the US presented itself as LGBT-friendly to contrast itself to “homophobic” Muslims during the War on Terror. It can also be applied to other contexts, like the way we talk about homophobic countries in Africa or the Caribbean while ignoring the role of European colonialism in those regions.
Put a finger down if you’ve ever heard something like:
You know being gay is a crime in Ghana, right?
Those Middle Eastern countries are so backwards. Do you know what they do to gay people over there?
Oh it’s so weird. [Looks around as if hearing something from outside the room.] My neighbor’s dog is going crazy…
You know you’ve lost the plot when you’re talking about homophobia among Muslims, when white American Christians are the ones who made gay marriage illegal, ignored the entire AIDS crisis, and to this day don’t have any national policies regarding conversion therapy, a trans-panic defense, or the forcing of trans women into men’s prisons and vice-versa.
Barbados just became free of British rule this week; we should not be shocked if they have some homophobic policies.
And while I obviously believe that a more moral society is one with robust protections for queer people, LGBT rights can’t be used to judge other countries, to make us feel better about bombing them.
As an aside, I live in Connecticut, an American state where it gets dark at 4pm now, and where LGBT rights are actually pretty good. We were one of the first states to institute gay marriage, transgender health care is part of our state insurance, and we’re just generally more legally protected here.
And yet while legal support is very robust in our state, there’s very little cultural support. Homophobia and transphobia in day-to-day life is roughly as bad as any other part of the country, and we have no gay cultural infrastructure. Only enough gay bars to count on one hand, and no known queer meeting spaces otherwise. It’s obviously not as bad as living in a place where being gay is a crime, but it’s still pretty lonely out here.
So for a variety of reasons, I don’t appreciate queer and trans people being used as a pawn to further Islamophobia, anti-African sentiment, and general xenophobia. Mainly because it’s racist and ignorant; many of these countries have a long, rich history of queer and trans and nonbinary identities before white European colonizers showed up, but also because western “acceptance” of LGBTQ people is very conditional and very limited in terms of material and legal protection.
White supremacy wins when we pit queer people and people of color against each other. We need international solidarity and an acknowledgment of colonialism to achieve equality and equity.
-end transcript
this is a huge problem in canada as well, touting the legality of same sex marriage while the canadian anglican church refuses to perform said marriages
and it’s always "well in x majority-poc country being gay is illegal, aren’t we so much better and progressive? you know what muslims do to gay people, right?”
while as a lesbian in one of the largest cities in canada I have experienced multiple hate crimes. I have actually had white ppl say to me, an east indian person, that I’m lucky my ancestors came here because of how homosexuality only recently became legal in India. but who made it illegal? british colonists.
white people have a serious superiority complex about thinking that they’re on the forefront of lgbt+ rights, as though they aren’t the ones who invaded most of the world and made our identities illegal
and for the record, my fellow muslims have been more accepting of my identity than white christians have ever been
it’s just so twisted that the same people whose ancestors spread anti-gay and anti-trans laws use those laws to justify invading/bombing/brutalizing their victims
theres been a shooting at a gay bar in oslo. 2 people are dead, 21 injured, and today’s pride parade has been cancelled.
people are going to make this about the attacker’s ethnicity. don’t let them. this was a homophobic and transphobic hate crime. nothing else.
trans people in norway have been screaming for years that we are not safe. that LGBT rights are so fucking fleeting. conversion therapy is still legal. it wasnt until 2016 that you could change your gender marker without being forcibly sterilised. we do not have access to medical care.
we can’t let this beat us down, but it’s hard not to. people are laughing at this tragedy. they will laugh when we die. they will do nothing to protect us other than arm the police.
UPDATE: April 30, 2016: River’s/Cavebae’s new blog is wokebae
UPDATED: AUGUST 13, 2015: CAVEBAE HAS CHANGED BLOGS. Her current blog is dadamime
UPDATED JULY 6 - She has changed her URLs so I thought I’d update this
WARNING this post will contain content such as sexual harassment, gender dysphoria, perhaps transphobia/disregard for gender dysphoria, asexual erasure, homophobia maybe (homophobic stereotypes), ageplay
I originally made a vague post regarding my ex-partner (see here) because I saw people reblogging her posts, and it was making me uncomfortable.
Now, however, after speaking with other people about her, I have discovered that her behavior is not all-that new and she has treated multiple people the same way as me.
So I’m making an official callout post for River AKA tumblruser cavebae/biologiclust (NSFW)/dicksploiter for sexual harassment
She has attempted to harass anyone who reblogs this post (only on anon though) information here
Edit: She made her own “callout post“ accusing me of necrophilia and animal abuse. Also involves more asexual erasure and disregard for the fact that I have always been open about my sexual confusion/asexuality. (warning for ableism at some parts)
River and I started "dating” during sometime early April. It had started out as sexting when she informed me that she wanted help getting off because the birth control pills she was taking were increasing her sex drive.
However, after a couple of days of just teasing/sexting, things soon progressed to the point where she confessed she “loved” me.
However, it should be known that she was extremely persistent with her advances and “confessions”.
It was my first “relationship” (something that she was aware of) and I had told her multiple times that I wasn’t too comfortable with relationships, especially extremely romantic sexual ones.
Despite being told this, she would send me multiple messages (majority of them being sexual) per day.
I’m not going to upload all the screencaps in this one post because there are A LOT, but I will link them
This is only perhaps half of the messages she sent me over a span of two months.
When I had told her her sexual advances made me uncomfortable (for reasons that I have a history of sexual assault, gender dysphoria, and general confusion about my sexual) she would typically “play the victim”, or try to “comfort me” in order to be more sexual
Here is a chat log I had with River explaining my gender dysphoria and just general dislike for my body
[I then proceeded to tell her about my experiences of being sexually harassed as a teenager, and just the bullying I went through in high school]
This is all she really had to say about the matter. This chat was from April 20.
Even after this discussion, she still continued to send me sexual messages. They became more graphic, too, asking for specific role playing (particularly anything involving incest). She would also send me videos and nudes regularly.
It had gotten to the point where I could no longer handle her sex drive when she had decided to send me sexual comments when I was going through a difficult time with my dad. I had made posts about it during the time (and she saw, because she commented on them) about how my dad was in Moncton during the Moncton Shootings.
zh also informed me that River had disgregarded my sexuality/confusion with my sexual multiple times before, even insinuating that because I enjoyed gay porn I wasn’t asexual
Anyway, after that incident, I had told River that I wanted to break up (sometime on June 14 - I can’t remember the exact date) after she had sent me several incoherent/hostile messages because I was I was acting silly during one of her video game streams
These are only some of the messages I received
A couple days after she had unfollowed me and no longer spoke to me. I had thought it was the end of everything, however, it turned out that she was telling people that we were still together (screencaps provided by zh again)
I had just found out about this literally like, 3 days ago too when zh had told me (my own screencaps)
Afterwards, I was extremely upset and began to basically blog about my displeasure about finding out River was lying to people about our relationship, which caused her to send the following asks present in this post
I have heard that this behavior is not necessarily new for River - however I will not speak about the experiences of other people as I do not have their permission.
This post is mostly about my own interactions with River and how she treated me. I made this post in order to warn others that she is extremely manipulative and does not understand the meaning of “no”.
UPDATE: April 30, 2016: River’s/Cavebae’s new blog is wokebae
UPDATED: AUGUST 13, 2015: CAVEBAE HAS CHANGED BLOGS. Her current blog is dadamime
UPDATED JULY 6 - She has changed her URLs so I thought I’d update this
WARNING this post will contain content such as sexual harassment, gender dysphoria, perhaps transphobia/disregard for gender dysphoria, asexual erasure, homophobia maybe (homophobic stereotypes), ageplay
I originally made a vague post regarding my ex-partner (see here) because I saw people reblogging her posts, and it was making me uncomfortable.
Now, however, after speaking with other people about her, I have discovered that her behavior is not all-that new and she has treated multiple people the same way as me.
So I’m making an official callout post for River AKA tumblruser cavebae/biologiclust (NSFW)/dicksploiter for sexual harassment
She has attempted to harass anyone who reblogs this post (only on anon though) information here
Edit: She made her own “callout post“ accusing me of necrophilia and animal abuse. Also involves more asexual erasure and disregard for the fact that I have always been open about my sexual confusion/asexuality. (warning for ableism at some parts)
River and I started "dating” during sometime early April. It had started out as sexting when she informed me that she wanted help getting off because the birth control pills she was taking were increasing her sex drive.
However, after a couple of days of just teasing/sexting, things soon progressed to the point where she confessed she “loved” me.
However, it should be known that she was extremely persistent with her advances and “confessions”.
It was my first “relationship” (something that she was aware of) and I had told her multiple times that I wasn’t too comfortable with relationships, especially extremely romantic sexual ones.
Despite being told this, she would send me multiple messages (majority of them being sexual) per day.
I’m not going to upload all the screencaps in this one post because there are A LOT, but I will link them
This is only perhaps half of the messages she sent me over a span of two months.
When I had told her her sexual advances made me uncomfortable (for reasons that I have a history of sexual assault, gender dysphoria, and general confusion about my sexual) she would typically “play the victim”, or try to “comfort me” in order to be more sexual
Here is a chat log I had with River explaining my gender dysphoria and just general dislike for my body
[I then proceeded to tell her about my experiences of being sexually harassed as a teenager, and just the bullying I went through in high school]
This is all she really had to say about the matter. This chat was from April 20.
Even after this discussion, she still continued to send me sexual messages. They became more graphic, too, asking for specific role playing (particularly anything involving incest). She would also send me videos and nudes regularly.
It had gotten to the point where I could no longer handle her sex drive when she had decided to send me sexual comments when I was going through a difficult time with my dad. I had made posts about it during the time (and she saw, because she commented on them) about how my dad was in Moncton during the Moncton Shootings.
zh also informed me that River had disgregarded my sexuality/confusion with my sexual multiple times before, even insinuating that because I enjoyed gay porn I wasn’t asexual
Anyway, after that incident, I had told River that I wanted to break up (sometime on June 14 - I can’t remember the exact date) after she had sent me several incoherent/hostile messages because I was I was acting silly during one of her video game streams
These are only some of the messages I received
A couple days after she had unfollowed me and no longer spoke to me. I had thought it was the end of everything, however, it turned out that she was telling people that we were still together (screencaps provided by zh again)
I had just found out about this literally like, 3 days ago too when zh had told me (my own screencaps)
Afterwards, I was extremely upset and began to basically blog about my displeasure about finding out River was lying to people about our relationship, which caused her to send the following asks present in this post
I have heard that this behavior is not necessarily new for River - however I will not speak about the experiences of other people as I do not have their permission.
This post is mostly about my own interactions with River and how she treated me. I made this post in order to warn others that she is extremely manipulative and does not understand the meaning of “no”.
UPDATE: April 30, 2016: River’s/Cavebae’s new blog is wokebae
UPDATED: AUGUST 13, 2015: CAVEBAE HAS CHANGED BLOGS. Her current blog is dadamime
UPDATED JULY 6 - She has changed her URLs so I thought I’d update this
WARNING this post will contain content such as sexual harassment, gender dysphoria, perhaps transphobia/disregard for gender dysphoria, asexual erasure, homophobia maybe (homophobic stereotypes), ageplay
I originally made a vague post regarding my ex-partner (see here) because I saw people reblogging her posts, and it was making me uncomfortable.
Now, however, after speaking with other people about her, I have discovered that her behavior is not all-that new and she has treated multiple people the same way as me.
So I’m making an official callout post for River AKA tumblruser cavebae/biologiclust (NSFW)/dicksploiter for sexual harassment
She has attempted to harass anyone who reblogs this post (only on anon though) information here
Edit: She made her own “callout post“ accusing me of necrophilia and animal abuse. Also involves more asexual erasure and disregard for the fact that I have always been open about my sexual confusion/asexuality. (warning for ableism at some parts)
River and I started "dating” during sometime early April. It had started out as sexting when she informed me that she wanted help getting off because the birth control pills she was taking were increasing her sex drive.
However, after a couple of days of just teasing/sexting, things soon progressed to the point where she confessed she “loved” me.
However, it should be known that she was extremely persistent with her advances and “confessions”.
It was my first “relationship” (something that she was aware of) and I had told her multiple times that I wasn’t too comfortable with relationships, especially extremely romantic sexual ones.
Despite being told this, she would send me multiple messages (majority of them being sexual) per day.
I’m not going to upload all the screencaps in this one post because there are A LOT, but I will link them
This is only perhaps half of the messages she sent me over a span of two months.
When I had told her her sexual advances made me uncomfortable (for reasons that I have a history of sexual assault, gender dysphoria, and general confusion about my sexual) she would typically “play the victim”, or try to “comfort me” in order to be more sexual
Here is a chat log I had with River explaining my gender dysphoria and just general dislike for my body
[I then proceeded to tell her about my experiences of being sexually harassed as a teenager, and just the bullying I went through in high school]
This is all she really had to say about the matter. This chat was from April 20.
Even after this discussion, she still continued to send me sexual messages. They became more graphic, too, asking for specific role playing (particularly anything involving incest). She would also send me videos and nudes regularly.
It had gotten to the point where I could no longer handle her sex drive when she had decided to send me sexual comments when I was going through a difficult time with my dad. I had made posts about it during the time (and she saw, because she commented on them) about how my dad was in Moncton during the Moncton Shootings.
zh also informed me that River had disgregarded my sexuality/confusion with my sexual multiple times before, even insinuating that because I enjoyed gay porn I wasn’t asexual
Anyway, after that incident, I had told River that I wanted to break up (sometime on June 14 - I can’t remember the exact date) after she had sent me several incoherent/hostile messages because I was I was acting silly during one of her video game streams
These are only some of the messages I received
A couple days after she had unfollowed me and no longer spoke to me. I had thought it was the end of everything, however, it turned out that she was telling people that we were still together (screencaps provided by zh again)
I had just found out about this literally like, 3 days ago too when zh had told me (my own screencaps)
Afterwards, I was extremely upset and began to basically blog about my displeasure about finding out River was lying to people about our relationship, which caused her to send the following asks present in this post
I have heard that this behavior is not necessarily new for River - however I will not speak about the experiences of other people as I do not have their permission.
This post is mostly about my own interactions with River and how she treated me. I made this post in order to warn others that she is extremely manipulative and does not understand the meaning of “no”.
“terfs” and tehms literally run in the same circles, they are mutuals on tumblr and many gay men support gender critical activism irl, but these clowns STILL manage to imply that 1) a woman doing the same thing as a man is always worse and 2) something being done to a woman (”trans men”) is not as bad as men (”trans women”) experiencing the same lmaoooo
Also I’m pretty sure TEHM was coined On tumblr and was designed to be the male counterpart for “TERF.” idk if it was a transactivist who genuinely thought that the male counterpart to feminists would be gay men, or if it was a troll blog ram by a radfem, but TEHM was coined specifically to call out the gay men who refused to date trans men for the same reasons that “terfs” (or, as op really meant, lesbians) refuse to date trans women, but who are not inherently feminist just bc they’re transphobic
